It’s back and this is such a great idea for helping your child reach their reading goals in 2015! One of my children’s very favorite magazines is Ranger Rick. They eagerly look forward to each issue arriving in the mail and they all take turns reading it from cover to cover (well, Silas just looks at each page since he’s still working on learning to read!)

If you’re not familiar with Ranger Rick, it’s a magazine for boys and girls ages 7-12. Each issue is packed with full-color photos of animals and stories of adventure. Ranger Rick is published by the National Wildlife Federation and focuses on teaching young kids about wildlife, nature, and conservation. It’s a perfect magazine for children who love the outdoors and animals — which describes all three of my children!

Compared to January, February was a harder month, but it was still a good month.

There were a number of discouraging things that happened and multiple dear friends are going through very painful circumstances/carrying heavy burdens and my heart hurts so much for them, so those two things coupled with a fairly heavy work load and being snowed in for a week, contributed to me feeling stressed, burdened, and discouraged for a lot of the month. You may have felt that some in my writing here.

In the middle of my discouragement, though, I felt so much blessing because some of my dearest friends rallied around me and spent a lot of time talking, listening, praying, and just encouraging me. And by the grace of God, I felt much more peace, calmness, and joy by the end of the month.

I’m also grateful that the sunshine has been out some this week. It’s amazing what a difference that makes!

Read in February: I started two fiction books, but didn’t get either finished. Does it count that I read two fiction books to the kids?

MoneySavingMom.com

Hire a local personal assistant.

Done! And I’m so grateful! My new assistant, Ashley, started last week and she’s already been a huge blessing to my life!

Launch 2 courses (we’re planning one for spring and one for fall — stay tuned!)

We spent hours and hours of time working on the first course, Makeover Your Mornings. We’re beginning production/filming of it this week and we’re quite stoked. I think you’re going to LOVE it!

Launch our new product line (slated to soft launch in the summer).

Release my third book (slated to come out November 2015).

We’re now in the midst of copy-edits. Yay!

Money

Increase last year’s overall giving totals by 10% in 2015.

Part of my going to South Africa was to investigate the possibility of our family personally supporting the work of Take Action. After coming home, we both felt this was the direction we were supposed to take and our partnership with them will allow us to meet this goal. We’re so thrilled with what God is doing there in South Africa and, for those who have joined us in this through the #TenDollarTribe.

This goal is currently on hold while we’re in the process of saving up enough to fully fund both of our IRA’s for this year.

How are you doing on YOUR goals for 2015?

If you set goals for this year, I’d love to hear how you are doing on them! Leave a comment telling us about your progress on them or leave the link over to your blog post about them. Here’s to a year of living with purpose, intentional, impact, and meaning!